It's Okay to Need Help

     Both DL's and AB's posts were very inspiring to me on two levels: AB's post made me want to talk about a documentary I watched recently and DL's post made me well... want to actually take the time to write about it, instead of moaning and groaning about my "stress".
     I don't know why, but the issue of anorexia has seemed to become closer to me in the last few years. The first time anorexia became a personal issue to me was when a friend of mine started rapidly losing weight at the end of middle school. We had started to get less close throughout middle school, not because we didn't like each other anymore, but simply because we had classes with different people and she drifted off towards a different group of friends, and I stayed with the same group, and our two groups of friends never fully melded. I'd known her since elementary school, and I never would have considered her fat. She was just that pre-pubescent kind of chubby that pretty much all girls go through. I never saw her get teased for it. Everyone loved her. She was always carefree, spontaneous, happy-go-lucky. But then she started losing weight. A lot of it, and fast. By ninth grade, she was skin and bones. And she wasn't the same cheerful, friendly person I'd known. People always jokingly said to her "You're too nice", and I felt that in some ways she took that to heart, and changed. She wasn't too nice anymore. Not mean, certainly not mean. But just not the same. Now, two years later, she seems to be much more of the person I knew in middle school, the friendly, happy-go-lucky girl. But she is still very thin.
     My friends and I have talked about her weight loss a lot, and at first we were just angry about it, and angry at her for "doing this to herself". But after I watched this documentary on anorexia,  Dying to Be Thin, I've come to realize that anorexia is not a choice; it is an illness. There is a reason anorexia is called anorexia nervosa. Many people with anorexia are anorexic because they find mental relief and stability by starving themselves. Studies have shown that many people with anorexia have abnormally high levels of serotonin, which leads to anxiety and stress. By starving themselves, people decrease their levels of serotonin and therefore experience less anxiety and less stress. But the thing about the brain is that it's not easily fooled. It senses that it's not producing as much serotonin and creates more serotonin receptors. This means that the person needs to eat even less to lower their serotonin levels and get rid of their stress and anxiety.
     Bulimia too, has a better explanation than "she's just trying to be skinny". A study conducted in the documentary Dying to Be Thin showed that a person with bulimia will eat two days' worth of food in one sitting. This is because the person's food goes from their stomach to their small intestine much slower than a normal person's, and the brain doesn't get the message that the stomach is full. Hence, the person doesn't feel full, and keeps eating. In order to compensate for this large intake of calories, a bulimic person will purge themself of the food.
     Excessive exercise is another eating disorder, in which a person may not restrict their calories, but will exercise in excess, so that they burn more calories than they eat. In the documentary, one woman said that while she's running a marathon, she's thinking about how soon she'll reach the finish line so that she can go to the gym. For her, exercise was a way to relieve her anxiety, which she'd had trouble with ever since she was a child.
     Eating disorders are not choices. They are illnesses that can be treated. I don't use "illness" in a negative way. Do you choose to get a cold? No. It just happens. But the thing is, you can get better. Sometimes that's by taking medicine, or by seeking help in different ways. One girl who suffered from anorexia was getting treatment at a hospital and after a few weeks of being in treatment, she admitted to being sexually abused. She said that it felt so good to tell someone, and if she hadn't, she would have gone home and gotten sick again. Sometimes in order to get better, you have to shed painful burdens.
     One thing that I've noticed about what people with eating disorders seem to have in common is that they feel that it is the one thing they have control over. And isn't that something we all want? We want to feel in control. We want to be in charge of our lives. It's human. But there are ways to feel in control without harming yourself, and that's where doctors and therapists and specialists come in.
     Another thing I've noticed is that people with eating disorders will often watch or read about other people with eating disorders, and copy their "techniques" for losing weight. One woman with bulimia even admitted to reading a self-help book in order to find out how to lose more weight. To people without eating disorders, this seems insane. It almost seems like the person wants this disease. But that's not true. The person has no control over the disease. In many ways, the disease has become them. But it doesn't have to be that way. You can get better. You just need to ask for help, or accept help if it's being offered. You have to trust that people care about you and want what's best for you. And you have to know that you are not alone. I don't know a single woman who whole heartedly loves every part of her body. Which is a sad and awful thing, but it doesn't have to be that way. As much as it can seem like the world is against us, it's really not. And although there are people out there who couldn't care less, there are also people willing to go to the ends of the earth to help.
     I also think that it's important to note that you should ask before assuming. Not every thin person has an eating disorder. There are some people who may appear as though they have an eating disorder, but really are just genetically very thin. They will probably feel insulted if you go up to them and tell them they need to eat more. That is just as unacceptable as telling a fat person they need to eat less. I learned this from Zoella's blog post about people always commenting on her weight. She hated being thin when she was a teenager and tried to gain weight, but couldn't. So while some people may consider it to be a compliment to tell her how skinny she is, she never felt so. And it's important to realize that. Basically, just love your body. And if you can't, it's okay to ask for help.

Day 333 Song Recommendation: "Ends of the Earth" by Lord Huron.
-SE Wagner